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37 Ideas to Help You Stay Sober During the Holidays (part 2)

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For tips 1-20, see 37 Tips to Help You Stay Sober During the Holidays (part 1).

Sober Holidays Tip #21 Bring your own beverage. If a holiday celebration includes the use of alcoholic beverages (such as wine at Passover), make sure in advance that there are substitutes (such as grape juice) for you and anyone else who doesn’t want to drink the harder stuff.

Sober Holidays Tip #22 Stay sober at the party: Don’t go it alone. Bring along an AA buddy or a hired sober companion. Or take someone at the party into your confidence (the host, a friend, even a waiter); candor will serve you better than pride, embarrassment, or guilt. Tell them that you can’t drink, and enlist them as bodyguard. It will make the event easier for you, and will keep you from winding up in a relapse. If you can’t take someone with you, … Read more...

Ask Dr. Al: What’s new in the second edition of The Recovery Book?

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What’s new in the second edition of The Recovery Book?

The entire book has been updated and revised.

It is now structured around the Recovery Zone System, an easy-to-follow, three-stage blueprint for getting into recovery, rebuilding a life, and staying sober for a lifetime. I developed this system over the last 20 years because I saw that too many people were relapsing—they either took on too much early in recovery, or they lost their focus a few years into sobriety. This new system helps to ensure that a person new to sobriety does not take on too much at once, takes the time to build a rock-solid foundation for a lifetime of recovery, and keeps a focus on recovery throughout his or her life.

My Recovery | Carla: Transgender and Alcoholic

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Before she became Carla, she was Carl. Being transgender was private and not something she ever felt comfortable opening up about at meetings, but her sponsors always told her: “It’s no big deal. In AA we don’t judge. You are one of us.” Says Carla,“They were right. AA became my best support system. Not only for my recovery. For my gender change, too.”

I had my first drink at 12 and at 14 was drinking most weekends. I goofed around in high school, took minimum credits the first half of college and spent the rest of my time partying. Halfway through college, as my girlfriend was breaking up with me she declared, “You’re going nowhere!” Resentment worked. I’d show her and I did.

For the next two college years, I only drank on weekends, and in law school limited myself to one weekend a month and graduated with honors. I … Read more...

West Coast Book Launch ~ at the NAADAC Conference

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West coast launch of The Recovery Book – done!

Dr. Al Mooney and Catherine Dold recently attended the NAADAC annual conference for addiction professionals in Seattle, signing and giving away more than 400 copies of The Recovery Book.

Dr. Mooney also sat down for a chat with Recovery Coast to Coast radio host Neil Scott, who called The Recovery Book the “Bible of recovery.” Listen to Neil Scott’s interview with Dr. Mooney:

Many thanks to Carol Lind Mooney and Recovery Houses Services for sponsoring The Recovery Book at their exhibit booth.

Recovery Zone ReCheck – New in The Recovery Book

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The Recovery Zone ReCheck is a simple relapse prevention plan.

In every Recovery Zone, at all times, you will be at some risk of relapse, often when you least expect it. The Recovery Zone ReCheck helps you avoid relapses by regularly taking stock of your life.

Once a month or so, use the three Recovery Zone ReCheck questions to assess your life. They will help you see when changes are coming up—relationships, work, health, medication and so on—that could trigger a relapse. These changes can be almost anything: dental procedure, divorce, getting a raise, having a baby, moving to a new town.

When you spot such road blocks, you move back a Zone or two, brush up on the guidelines of that Zone, re-commit to sobriety, and re-focus on recovery. See pages 18-21 in The Recovery Book for all the details.

My Recovery Story

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Did you catch the video of Dr. Mooney’s grandson? He is sharing his family’s recovery story.

He’s only 6, but he already knows that the disease of addiction can do great harm to a family — AND that recovery can break the cycle for an entire family. Happy endings do happen!

What is your recovery story? Your family’s story? Share it on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #myrecovery, on our Facebook page, or in the comments below. (If you prefer to stay anonymous, email it to us at TheRecoveryBook@gmail.com and we’ll post it for you.)